June Online Meeting

Items for discussion:

Re-evaluation of the U17 category: there is some confusion with the U17 category. Earlier we decided to make one U17 category, eliminating the Sport and Expert categories. The reason for eliminating these designations was to there were too many 2 person categories in the old system. It was thought that racers who were in this age bracket would could race as U17 OR one of SPORT, COMP, or EXPERT if they were strong enough to compete in those categories - most likely under the direction of the provincial coach. There has been some confusion with some of the racers in this category, not quite sure where they are suppose to go. The whole premiss of the MB Cup series is to create a system to put riders in categories where they can be competitive and challenged, but not overmatched. We also wanted to eliminate the number of categories (frankly having 1200 MB Provincial Cup champion jerseys out there cheapens their significance). Is this worth continuing?

Provincials: It is time to start planning the Provincials course out at Falcon. With the race this past weekend fresh in your mind think of elements you liked, disliked and want in a course. First reconnaissance will be July long weekend. Comment if you are interested in helping with this. An extended agenda of planning will be forthcoming.

Other?

May 17 Minutes

1. Online Registration:

• Clubs need to take into account the transaction fees associated with each event
• Registration information needs to be sent to the MCA office one month in advance of the event
• Clubs are encouraged to use the online waiver form - see past races for examples
• Information forms will be reformat  to reflect the information needs of the race bibles and in a format that can be written to (Word over PDF)

2. Late Fees and Race Costs

• Will introduce a family price for next year to make races more cost friendly for families
• Out of province racers who show up the day of the race to register will not be charged late fees
• It was decided to keep the same day registration fees high to encourage advanced registration for events. Suggested that this should be a minimum of $40

  
3. Club Points

• A new system will be developed for next year to make it fairer and to take into account the number of riders in a category
• The system should reward clubs that bring people into the sport, i.e. points for new participants, increases in riders from one year to the next
• There was discussion on the merits of separating kids from adults in the results

4. Movement between categories

• Need to make sure that racers know there categories and that they consistently race in that category. If a rider races in another category without getting permission from the committee they will not receive any points for that race
• The number of points that a rider takes with them to the next category is thought to be too high, this will be readdressed for next year
• Hal will check the results from the current races to verify that there has not been any movement between categories without written permission

5. Leaders plates

• Concern by commissaires that it was difficult to track racers who had leader plates (there are no numbers on the leaders plate). It was decided that we would like to stay with the current systems and that we would ask the commissaires if they could try and make it work

6. Reach the Beach

• Race date to be changed because of availability of facilities - changed to August 1.

7. Promotion

• Bur Oak – set up a booth on a Saturday to promote the MTB racing and hand out information to casual riders using the trails
• There should be an MCA booth at the Ice Bike event
• A MTB Ambassador should be at all races and events to answer questions about cycling
• Draws for free races from Ice Bike and Bring a Friend
• Interview new racers and put the interview up on the MCA website

8. Junior category clarification

• Hal to clarify the junior category and post information on the commissaires blog

9. Trails, mapping and trail marking

• Discussion on the importance of cleaning up the signs and tape used to mark trails for races - all tape and markings are to be removed from a race site following a race, especially if it is in a public park
• A post calling for contributions of trial maps and GPS files will be posted. This is to build a resource that mountain bikers can use for their trail rides

10. Provincial Falcon create timeline and tasks

• A timeline and planning schedule regarding the provincials is to be created.

Next Meeting - Monday, May 17th

Where: Sport Manitoba, MCA office.
Time: 6:30 -8:00

Agenda:

1. Online Registration
2. Late fees 
3. Club Points
4. Promotion
5. Junior category clarification
6. Trails and trail marking

Others stuff?

Updates 2

1. The online registration for the Cup Series and Wednesday Night Series are up, register online now.
2. The new MCA website is up. The new url is mbcycling.ca. You will be redirected from the old url. More importantly we now have a mountain bike page (woohoo). Take a look and see if there is anything you want added. Race organizers take a look at the "Race Organizer" tab on the page - let me know if there is anything you want to find here. All of our races are up in the race calendar (you can get to it by clicking on the dates on the race calendar or by going to "Races & Events" and then clicking on the 2010 MTB Race Dates and Results. If you look at the Grand Beach race it shows the race bible that we want up two weeks prior to each event, sooner is even better.

Updates

 A couple of important updates:

1. Karleo online registration is ready to go for the Cup race series and the Wednesday Night Series. The individual races will be up shortly.
2. The information forms that all organizers need to fill out will be online in a day or two. Right now they are in PDF form but will be made into online forms shortly. Check the MCA site.
3. We're working on still getting a commissaire's course for this year. I know it is late, but things have not lined up the way they should have on this - keep checking here or the MCA site for updates. 
4. All the clubs have agreed to change the levy system from $2 per U15 and older racer for Cup races to $1 per U15 and older racer for any MCA sanctioned mountain bike event.

April Online Meeting

Four items are posted below for the April meeting. Each item is its own post, please comment on each item and offer suggestions etc. If you want to add another item please comment to this post.

1. Promotion
2. Plates
3. Commissaires 
4. Canada Cup

A couple of documents will be posted shortly where I am looking for input before they are published - please keep checking this site.

Also, I am looking for a volunteer to track the MTB Cup points and the inter-club competition, any takers?

Thanks,
Hal Loewen
MTB Coordinator

April Online Meeting - Promotion

These cards where designed as a promotional tool for our MTB races. The idea was to have business cards beside cash registers in the shop and have them hand them out, directing people to our web site for more information.

I priced out that it is roughly $100 for 1000 cards. We have roughly $120 in our budget for these types of promotions. 1000 cards distributed to roughly 10 supporting shops might last a few days or a week or two, do we want to pursue this? Can somebody get a better price than this?